Commentary

Google's Sword Of Damocles?

I love a good story of mystery and intrigue, especially when it involves something as mundane as search engine optimization.

This story involves a reporter from Forbes, a Google
salesguy, and the case of a missing news report.

Late last week, Forbes technology reporter Kashmir Hill wrote about being pulled into a meeting with Google salespeople at her
publication. The Forbes folks wanted Hill's take on the meeting -- where, she wrote, the Google guy suggested a strong correlation between search results and publishers putting the Google
"+1" button on their pages.

Right about now you're probably asking, "Where in the hell is the link to the story??" That's the same question everyone who saw the story on the Forbes site is
asking - since it's now missing (cue menacing movie music).

Luckily, colleagues captured screenshots, so I'm able to report on what Hill wrote. In setting up the story, she described the
aspects of Google+ that are social networking in substance, and the fact that activity in personal Circles will influence the search results you see. And then she wrote: "But a meeting with Google ad
folks earlier this week made me realize that it's going to be even bigger than that. Google is encouraging web publishers to start adding +1 buttons to their pages, and the message in this meeting was
clear, 'Put a Plus One button on your pages or your search traffic will suffer.'

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The Google guy explained how the new recommendation system will be a factor in search. 'Universally, or just
among Google Plus friends?' I asked. 'Universal' was the answer. 'So if Forbes doesn't put +1 buttons on its pages, it will suffer in search rankings?' I asked. Google guy says he wouldn't phrase it
that way, but basically yes.'"

Being a good reporter, Hill went to the official Google PR folks to get their reaction to this bit of news. Here's what they told her: "'Google will study the
clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results,' said a spokesperson. 'The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search
quality. For +1's and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality.'"

Take it from one who
knows, that's long-winded PR speak for "yes". As in "If Forbes doesn't include +1 buttons on its pages, it will suffer in search rankings?" The answer is: "Yes

Hall did post a summary of her reporting to her own Google+ Circles. And in the comments section below it, one commenter said he was aware of a push by
Google to also give publishers a way to specify a Google+ profile as the author of a Web page via meta tags on that page. As the commenter points out, it would be a powerful way to boost your
rankings as an author, because your identity would be consolidated to a single Web profile (as opposed to the many profiles we have all over the Web on Facebook, for instance, or LinkedIn or a work
profile on a company website).

There was one other comment, which asked, what happened to the Forbes article? Why was it pulled-- and why must one do so much sleuthing in order to
find its ghost? Hard to say... perhaps the reporter got her information wrong? Or maybe Forbes didn't like seeing the results of a routine business meeting appear as news?

Whatever
the case, given Google PR's comments to the reporter, it seems we're all on notice. Get Google's +1 button onto your webpages -- or suffer the consequences.

I have mixed feelings on this. With my publisher hat, I can understand Forbes's frustration that this feels like a strong-arm tactic on Google's part to make Google Plus ubiquitous. Announcing that +1 is going to be an SEO factor is also unnecessarily bold -- because it gives major incentives for click farms to game and pollute Google+ with fake profiles and likes.With my user hat, I feel this is a step in the right direction to improve search--giving readers the power to give instant feedback as to whether they found an article helpful. A long time coming.Lawyer hat: For anti-trust purposes, I'd think Google would need to explicitly ensure that +1 isn't weighted any differently than Facebook likes.

Google has said publicly that +1s will be a signal in search. Every commentator in the industry has said: very few folks are going to +1 a link to a page, since they haven't seen the page yet, so the only way you're going to generate +1s is to put it on your page. Hence, the fact that you're missing what is to be an important positive signal is...well ... bad for your rankings.

If instead, this was 2003 and the Google rep said: "Our spider can't really read flash, and it likes good link text. If you don't have good link text it will hurt your rankings..." would we feel any different?

This isn't blackmail, it's cluing people in on how to play the game. Google has always done this. Would they be happier if Google didn't give them the heads up?

Why is this any different than Facebook recommending you but a "Like" button on your page? Wouldn't that also increase your ranking in any search? Do you want to handicap Google becuase it is now both a search engine and a social media site? Now that I have asked it that way maybe we should.

That's the biggest issue is that Google +1 (and plus for that matter) are already going to be used to exploit rankings and are now ripe for spammers. Also I'm not fully convinced that the public should have a say in what's relevant per se, for this very reason. The amount of spammers and people that just plain aren't informed and go after what people tell them just is probably not the best way to run an "objective" information warehouse. This strong arm tactic hopefully will give rise to people choosing alternative search engines. I really like Google but they're "tweaking" things way too much lately and I just worry they will monopolize the market.

Yes, you are right Andrew. Thank you. So extortion is illegal, too, whether G or FB ? But I wouldn't put blackmail beyond G's range of motion in some other instance. Hard to believe Forbes is the only publication involved.

By some estimations, Google is the second most respected brand in the world (after Apple). Therefore, a Google "Like" button is long long overdue. If their brand were less respected than it is, I could see there being a valid problem. Maybe Apple needs to get their Apple+ (A+) going?!